Brouwer, Roland (1992) Common Goods and Private Profits: Traditional and Modern Communal Land Management in Portugal

Conference: Presented at "Inequality and the Commons," the third annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Washington, DC, September 17-20, 1992.

Abstract: "Often communal property is seen as a guarantee for equity. However, exploitation of a communal resource may well be more profitable to elites than to lower strata. Partitioning and privatizing are no solution but may have similar social effects. This suggests that it is not the property structure itself, but mechanisms of social (re-) distribution and security that determine social equity. This reasoning is illustrated by reference to to the evolution of Portuguese communal land use rights.

"In Portugal large tracts of communally owned land still exist. They are used for grazing, gathering, and for provision of fertilizer. Access is restricted to community members. Outsiders are excluded. Within users' communities inequality can persist as one's capability to exploit a communal resource is related to access to private means of production; cattle, man-power and land.

"The commons existing at the moment are the remainder of a vast area. Communal land has become private property by usurpation, sales by local authorities, and partitioning amongst the commoners after state intervention. In all cases, elites benefitted more than lower strata. Most of the remaining area has been placed under control of the forestry services, but since 1976, local communities can exercise rights of exploitation and management over these areas as well. Although revenues of state planted forests sometimes have become the bone of contention between local factions and local and higher level organizations within and outside the state, this combination of forestry and popular rights seems to offer the best guarantee for equal distribution of communal wealth."